Saturday, July 9, 2016

Painting Skeletons: Step-by-Step

When it comes to assembly line painting lots of figures for a table-top army, it doesn't get much easier than skeletons. Here's a quick way to get lots of skellies on the table.

First, the main set of painting operations are laid out here for you. White base coat, a home-made dark wash, bone, umber and then aged white.

So, I've started with some skeleton archers from the GW Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors box. Here, assembled and based with sand.

The simple process begins with a base coat of white spray.

Next is a brushed-on coat of home-made dark wash. The recipe is pretty straightforward: floor wax, a little black paint and a little dark brown paint. Finally, a touch of matt medium to take the shine off. Here, the base coated white models are on the left, and the dark-washed models are on the right.

Next comes a light overspray of Vallejo Skeleton Bone. You can see it applied to the models on the right in this photo.

The next step is a glaze of Umber Wash. That's Umber Wash mixed with some Vallejo Glaze Medium. Here, the skeletons on the right have the glaze layer applied.

Finally, each model gets a final spray of Aged White, just from the top down.

Once all the bone is done, it's time to paint in the few details on the models. This includes the bows, quivers and a few bits of armor and jewelry.

And then it's time to finish off the bases. These are done with the Foundry Base Sand set of colors. Quick and perfectly fine table-top quality models. Ready for just about any game system you care to use.